A Mad Dog
"Don't you think, Hargate," Ruthven shouted in his ear, "we had better run before it? It's as much as Handcock can do to keep her head straight."

"Yes," Frank shouted back, "if it were not for the Goodwins. They lie right across ahead of us."

Ruthven said no more, and for another hour he and Frank rowed their hardest. Then Handcock and Jones took the oars. Ruthven lay down in the bottom of the boat and Frank steered. After rowing for another hour Frank found that he could no longer keep the boat head to wind. Indeed, he could not have done so for so long had he not shipped the rudder and steered the boat with an oar, through a notch cut in the stern for the purpose. Already the boat shipped several heavy seas, and Ruthven was kept hard at work baling with a tin can in which they had brought out bait.

"Ruthven, we must let her run. Put out the other oar, we must watch our time. Row hard when I give the word."

The maneuver was safely accomplished, and in a minute the boat was flying before the gale.